Environmental challenges like resource depletion, climate change, and biodiversity loss require human action. Environmental education influences individuals’ understanding and motivates responsible behavior, making it a real solution to address current problems. In this study, we examine the impact of situational environmental education and daily environmental education on tourists’ responsible environmental behavior by incorporating them as covariates into an integrated tourist behavior model. In total, 2381 valid questionnaires were obtained. The results showed that (1) daily environmental education mainly affects tourists’ responsible environmental behavior through attitude (0.467) and habits (0.634); (2) tourists’ responsible environmental behavior is mainly affected by situational environmental education through habits (0.534), subjective norms (0.504), and intention (0.614); and (3) personal factors, including attitudes toward environmental behavior, subjective norms, and perceptual behavior control, positively influence tourists’ responsible environmental behavioral intention and their responsible environmental behavior. This research will help to improve sustainability indicators and frameworks and to promote the adoption of sustainable tourism practices.

With the increasing number of travelling people, the behavior of tourists is having an increasing impact on the environment. Situational environmental education will influence the tourists’ responsible environmental behavior, which positively or negatively affects the environment. The purpose of this study is to explore the impact of situational environmental education on tourists’ responsible environmental behavior through a field study of Changchun Water Culture Ecological Park, combined with a survey and Zaltman metaphor elicitation technique (ZMET) interview method. There are 527 questionnaires, 89 pre-questionnaires, and 15 interview records collected. The results showed that: (1) All interviewees were impressed with the situational environmental education in the park. It can be concluded that the situational environmental education is easily accepted. The reason may be that, among the theme park users, 42.69% were aged 21–30 year’s old, and 62.8% of the population have a college degree or above. (2) The standardized path coefficient of situational environmental education in tourist destinations for tourists’ behavioral intention is 0.74, and the standardized path coefficient for responsible environmental behavior is 0.78, which is much higher than the standard value of 0.4. Therefore, situational environmental education has positive influences on the tourists’ behavioral intention and responsible environmental behavior. (3) The sensitive analysis the tourists’ behavioral intention has a positive relationship with attitudes toward environmental behaviors (0.66), subjective norm (0.53), and perceptual behavior control (0.52). The results of this study can provide a scientific basis for the planning and design of urban parks.